Thief has always been my favourite. Not the twin sword with venom encrusted blade rogue from modern RPGs, but a true thief in cheap padded leather and a long bladed dagger who can never seem to keep what he acquires.

The art style if our game will target the style you see in the minis and the cover art of Paizo's books. Over time we'll get better at hitting the target, but if you think that style is "cartoony", you should expect the game will look to you like a cartoon.

I'm very glad that you are going with the Pathfinder Art style. It's a brand in and of itself, and I have been a big fan of that style since it first appeared. It may be cartoony in a way but at least it is staying true to it's brand and it will age well in the gaming industry.

You only need to look at how quickly the characters of Age of Conan aged. Great landscape, but the faces of the "realistic" characters look horrible 5 years on.

Actually Jazz, I think you managed to pinpoint exactly what I wasn't able to find. As I said, I just don't have the time to go trawling through everything looking for specifics lately due to an incredibly busy schedule and working and being on the road a lot. I understand things are subject to change, and I understand that with Gencon and PAX things have been hectic as well, I'm just hoping that someone with more time (or better time management) can compile all of the information we have in one spot eventually.

Thanks for the responses everyone. I don't frequent the message boards as much these days but I'm still lurking in the shadows and eavesdropping when I have the time.

I'm beginning to hear rumours of things that aren't appearing on the Goblinworks blog or stickied in this forum so I'm requesting that the goblinworks team (or community focused person) compile a sticky on these forums for those of us that just don't have the time trawl through every post or visit fan sites.

As a Kickstarter backer I feel that I am not getting as much information as I should when compared to other Kickstarter projects I have backed in the past.

I would love to see some myths busted or proven to be fact.
For example, is it true that Pathfinder Online Sieges must now be scheduled. I have heard this to be recent news but I have not seen anything about it on these message boards or on the goblinworks blog.

It's nice that they deal damage but their best value should be in the utility they have. Sneaking, trapping, unlocking etc.

I think most MMOs have shied away from designing encounters that required utility classes because of the complaints the players had about being so reliant. I'm hopeful that PFO will veer away from that idea and embrace the principle that a really effective group needs to be large and diverse - as in a couple dozen or more characters including a variety of utility roles.

I agree. I hope that utility becomes more prevalent in future games.

It always bothered me that some of the Tank/Healer community pushed for the removal of the utility role in MMOs using the excuse that they shouldn't have to rely on a specific class to fill that role, yet they are playing a class with a required role (tank/healing).

Personally, I'd like to see rogue-likes return to their utility roots. If you want to be better at combat, dip into the warrior features/skills. I'd really like to see a movement/skill penalty on armour types, this in itself is a good balance mechanic. Heavy Armour restricts base movement and certain dextrous/physical skills, medium armour does to a lesser extent, light armour lesser again, with no armour providing no penalty at all. With time invested into the respective armour skills you can soften the penalties to an extent but the lighter the armour worn, the player should always have a slightly better movement and skill advantage over the heavier armour player. This is counter balanced by the heavier armour being better at absorbing and deflecting damage.

The Devs have still not detailed how players will build up Lawful, other than inactivity. When we log out, we automatically but slowly, shift to lawful. depending on how far from Lawful you start at, it could take hours or even days or weeks to get to Lawful. If you tend not to fight too much at all, you will be Lawful and likely Lawful Neutral. But, that is just a guess on my part.

I would guess that PVE is the main route for Lawful. Not sure though, would have to think about it. Maybe guarding caravans and fighting off attackers. Hmmm... There arent too many ways outside of PVE I can think of.

Taking contracts for any reason and ensuring they are fulfilled. I can think of a few PvP related contracts, but they mainly revolve around escorting or bounty hunting.

Fulfilling a contract to escort another player, whether it be a caravan, traveller, prospector or any other player that requires protection.

Fulfilling a contract to capture or kill an outlaw.

PvE related could be anything that requires trading or selling merchandise honourably and by the law.

First of all I must say I am impressed with the blog. It is very risky but if you guys manage to pull it off I believe it will add some amazing depth to combat.

Regarding magical turbulence, I loved the pebble in the water analogy and It immediately sparked the idea that explosive energy needs fuel to work. Fireballs and Lightning bolts consuming oxygen is an obvious reaction, but also spells such as Ice Storm which would require humidity or moisture to form the ice and Poisonous vapour clouds become too dense and liquify.

As someone who generally plays a light armoured melee character I have some trepidation, I'll be the one getting toasted after all. That being said I welcome the challenge as it will make combat so much more interesting, especially if siege weapons have the same or similar friendly fire problems.

I think that this should extend to certain slashing weapons as well. If you plan on wild slashing arc to hit several enemies in front of you and an ally gets in the way, it's his fault for breaking formation or getting in the way. This is why pike and spear formations were superior over unorganised axe or club wielding barbarians, spears only point in one direction, so the pikemen rarely injured their comrades. Imagine the friendly damage an olympic hammer toss style barbarian would cause (similar to the fanatic goblins in warhammer FB).

I can see why either a pacifist or an evil settlement would not want Bounty Hunters trolling their streets and freely attacking its citizens.

This is an interesting point. I could see a lawful neutral, lawful good or even a tyrannical lawful evil society frowning upon bounty hunters or vigilantes taking the law into their own hands. Some might consider it illegal to bypass the authorities of law enforcement placing bounty collecting of any form in a similar category to kidnapping or assassination.

Is it possible to add a mechanic similar to GW2s downed state? You could the. theoretically have duelling work like any other combat but give you the choice to spare their life when they yield or perform a cool coup de gras. I'm not particularly a fan of WoW style duelling(I would consider that to be sparring), but if duelling were done in the same manner as that of the renaissance period (pistols at ten paces for example), then many duels were to the death or to first blood.

I've been playing around with Wizardry Online since they went open beta. I have to say, the game itself is rather bad (Animation, Art, Combat etc) but the hardcore mechanics are great fun. It even has permadeath if you aren't careful, FFA PvP & Criminal systems, full looting, husks and all that jazz. I only wish that a big budget company could put something like that together because it really is fun and works quite well. It makes me hope that GW will remain true to their vision but produce a much better quality than Wizardry.

DDO uses attack arcs. There are others (especially some of the newer asian fantasy MMOs) but DDO is probably the closest thing you'll find, mechanics-wise, to pathfinder. Although DDO doesn't have friendly fire, and it's PvP is pretty lame, but ray spells occasionally misfire when a party member gets in the way. But that's a bug, not design.

While not the best example, Age of Conan was a FFA Themepark MMO with attack arc's, ranged LoS and Friendly Fire AoE to anyone outside your group or raid. It is also the perfect example of what can go wrong with friendly fire and a criminal system. At one point I remember a group of low level (50) players that would hang out at the entrance of a higher level zone (60) and position themselves in front of people specifically to ensure the higher level player would tag them by accident and get flagged criminal.

Take everything you are saying about fireballs and apply it not only to archers but the swordmonkeys too. Why shouldn't I be able to stealth up behind some BSF and wait to get nicked by his greatsword's backswing, allowing me to 'retaliate' with extreme prejudice? Now he is a dead criminal and I'm a happy 'lawful good' bandit. Saying that friendly fire shouldn't apply to melee is transparent class discrimination and short-range favouritism. Swords must be handled with care, not swung around willy-nilly.

The problem is, friendly fire creates a griefer's paradise, and saying mages should have to be careful while barbarians can act like drunken gorillas is simply unfair. If I'm going to get flagged because some tool intentionally gets in the way when he sees me begin casting, then I may as well go evil from the start and not worry about it. The PK 'culture' of early UO was largely grown out of players who got themselves accidentally...

Nowhere in any of my posts ever did I say that friendly fire should apply to magic and magic only. Nowhere in any of my posts ever did I say that friendly fire should not take into account melee swings or ranged weapons. Nowhere in any of my posts did I say that someone should be able to stealth up behind another player and not get hit with a backswing. YOU said those things, not me, so stop putting words in my mouth.

Keovar wrote:

SSI's 'gold-box' engine was used for what was probably the first graphical MUD, the original Neverwinter Nights. It was hosted on AOL, and only allowed 500 players on at a time. There was friendly fire, which produced the only PvP available in the game: magic-users (usually dual-classed with cleric) indirectly blasting one another. Of course, that was a turn-based system in which targeting was a calculation in a fixed environment, not an estimation in a fluid one. In other words, it's a false analogy and your grognard card is a weak argument from antiquity.

You really are Venomous when someone doesn't share your opinion.

I see you learned how to use wikipedia. So you mention the gold box games and their turn-based features, but you conveniently left out Bioware's Baldurs Gate series and Neverwinter Nights.

In fact, Massive Multiplayer Online RPGs are the only online Multiplayer games that do not have friendly fire as a feature.

Multiplayer RPG's have Friendly fire, as mentioned with Neverwinter Nights (Bioware/Atari) and Baldur's Gate and even Dragons Age: Origins.

Real Time Strategy games generally feature friendly fire, it's wise not to send troops under an artillery barrage.

First Person Shooters also feature friendly fire, I couldn't imagine playing Left4Dead with my friends and not worrying about whether they are in my firing line of not, it takes away half of the fun. In Left 4 Dead, you have a split second to decide where you are throwing that Molotov cocktail, and you can be sure if you mess it up, your team mates will suffer.

Lastly, friendly fire was there from the pen and paper games first and foremost. You had time to react and plan where you placed your fireball, but that doesn't mean it can't be a fun feature in a PC game where you have seconds to make these decisions.

So really, labelling my opinion as one of antiquity is just a matter of your archaic opinion and refusal to shift from the days of multi-user dungeons and whatever MMO you come from.

Get off the Spider-Man crap here, it's a thinly-veiled excuse to make spellcasters more prone to getting unintentionally flagged. Why do you want to play a fantasy game if you hate magic?

What happens when you attack and there's a stealthed person standing in the way?
Your attack either:
1. Hits them, flagging you as an attacker and criminal.
2. Passes through harmlessly, as if by magic.
3. Pops up an "Are you sure?" dialogue.

What people are proposing here is that the archer gets the 2nd result, the BSF with his greatsword gets option 3 (or 2), while only the spellcaster has to deal with the consequences of 1. What is so special about spell damage that it warrants turning every mage into a criminal while the rangers and paladins go on about their blissfully ignorant way?

You asked the question "Why do you want to play a fantasy game if you hate magic?"

My answer is I have been playing fantasy games since thieves had 1d4 hit points and fireballs could blow up your party as well as the goblins fighting them. I love fantasy games with magic, but I want that magic to be handled with care, not just thrown around willy-nilly. Fireballs have been blowing up friendly faces since the 80's in Computer RPGs, why should this change because it's an MMO? SSI did it with the Gold Box, Bioware did it with Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, why should Pathfinder eliminate friendly fire when it has been common place since Pools of Radiance and Champions of Krynn? And do not try to use the excuse that Pathfinder is not D&D because Pathfinder is very much the successor of the old rules.

I fully support Friendly fire in this game. With great power comes great responsibility, you cannot just go around throwing fireballs willy-nilly without collateral damage and negative consequences. The great thing about spells like Fireball in the table top games was that they were both feared and respected, they were incredibly powerful but had the potential to really backfire if not used responsibly.

When I said "other" I wasn't disputing the Golarion Deities. I just prefer to have more options for clerics and paladins than just the Deities. "Other" represents a more mysterious cosmic unknown that grants power, it could be one of Golarions deities meddling outside his influence or it could be some dark forgotten entity reminiscent of the Elder Elementals or Lovecraftian eldritch/cosmic horror.

What some people consider fun, I consider working and I'm sure that this view covers many points of view. I consider running the same PvE dungeon for weeks on end to get best in slot gear to be work, especially when I know that gear will need to be replaced with every new content patch.

What I consider fun is being part of an economy.

I can contribute as a hunter & gatherer taking my
donkey and cart into the wilds and returning (hopefully) with some resources to sell to the refiners or crafters that use them. I rely on adventurers or soldiers for protection.

I can play a refiner, who smelts a variety of ores into precious and workable metals, prepares wood for the woodcrafters, tans the leather for the leather workers, butchers the meat for the cooks. I rely on hunters and gatherers for my trade.

I can contribute as a simple crafter, buying my materials from those that dare the wilderness, and supplying townsfolk with farming tools, armies with weapons and armour or building furniture or houses. I rely on farmers, harvestors to gather resources so that I can craft.

I can contribute as a bounty hunter, taking contracts to hunt and kill (or capture) lawbreakers or rebels. I rely on crafters to craft and repair my
kit.

I can contribute as an adventurer, finding dungeons and tombs, slaying (or capturing) the monsters that inhabit them, taking whatever treasure I can carry and selling what I don't need to the people that craft wonderous items. Or I could hire myself out to protect caravans or gatherers. I rely on crafters for my kit, gatherers for work between adventures and wonderous crafters or collectors for work.

I could be a soldier, in service to a settlement or kingdom, whether it is to fight in wars, keeping bandits in check or chasing off rowdy adventurers. I rely on crafters for my kit and
my kingdom for work.

I can be a bandit or bushranger, waylaying travelers and relieving them of their worldy possessions. I rely on a steady stream of adventurers, traveling merchants and gatherers in order to ply my trade and replenish or replace my rusted weapons and armour.

There are so many possibilities that surely someone is bound to have fun.

Please take Nihimons advice and do some more research. The pain of Looting is only relative to the way gear is handled and distributed. Without item loss there is an imbalance in the crafting game, if crafters have no reason to craft, gatherers and adventurers have little reason to gather, if gatherers and adventurers don't need to gather resources then Bandits and highwayman have nothing to rob, if bandits don't exist then guards and bounty hunters have nothing to do. If crafters don't craft, then kingdoms cannot go to war.. there will be no content without the looting.

I'm aware of neverwinter but two things about neverwinter don't gel with me, 4e ruleset and a primarily gear based themepark. PFOs skill based rules and sandbox themepark hybrid set in golarion are what draws me to this game.

Players might not want to create something like this without some sort of reward (especially if they are laying out all the cash risk) so I would think there'd be a couple ways a budding dungeon master (lol) could be recompensed for their time/effort:

Any player entering forgos their 'locked/threaded' status. Perhaps there could be a sliding scale on this, allowing a few less threads, or none if the dungeon is rated 'insanely hard'. If they fail, then the dungeon's owner gets to loot their corpse retaliation/curse free.

If people are squeamish about risking gear, perhaps there could be an entrance toll. A doorway with a slot where each player has to deposit a pre-determined amount of coin to enter.

In this way, the poorly-made/death trap/cheap reward dungeons would soon be ignored, and a balance could be struck between adventurers looting a dungeon master's goodies and vice/versa.

I'd say the loot dropped by foolhardy adventurers should remain where their bodies fell rather than simply reverting to the dungeon builder. If it is his or her dungeon they should have to risk the dungeon hazards themselves to retrieve it, and following parties, as well as the fallen on their corpse runs, should be able to pick the items up when they arrive at the spot.

This.

The price of entry is the risk of adding your inventory to the dungeon.
The reward is the loot you may find on the husks of the defeated and the reward placed by the dungeon master. Alternatively there could be a contract (quest) to clear the dungeon and the reward identified in the contract. This contractual reward would be granted to the first person that completes it and would be in addition to the rewards found on the husks of the fallen.

Motivations for building a dungeon could vary widely. Personally, I would love to play a Thief or Adventurer that has a secret hideout inside a city or settlement, so I would enjoy having a sewer entrance with a few traps to throw people off my scent.

My other motivator would be from a GM point of view, I think it would be great to play a character thats sole goal in life is a monster collector. It would be great to support adventurers by hiring them to go out and capture live monsters for me to place inside a dungeon that I design. Then filling it with traps, puzzles, secret doors and placing some treasure that I don't have use for as a reward for those that can beat it.

In the later case, it would be a long term goal for when I have treasure and money. It would stimulate the economy by providing work for adventurers, trap makers and masons and circulating treasure that I no longer have use for.

It's a pipe-dream really, I don't expect it but it is something that would be really great for a sandbox.

Hypothetical speaking here. Assume players can create a dungeon/lair and recruit monsters and place treasure and traps in a similar fashion to STO or the upcoming NWN foundry. As long as the treasure placed actually comes from the player, there really isn't a way to exploit it.

Progression is time based skills is it not? So experience is not a motivator.
If treasure placement came from the designers own inventory or stash of unwanted items then it's win-win for everyone. There's no real motivator for exploiting by either the designer or player.

The above example isn't what I had in mind from the original post though. I interpreted it as more of an alternate "player housing" kind of thing

I would love to have the option to place a secret sewer entrance to a Thieve's Guild in a settlement. Be able to craft and place traps and secret doors, and go out and capture a gelatinous cube and Otyugh to guard it.

@Elth, look up mount and blade, that is something you might be interested

@anduis: look up ArcheAge, they are doing roughly the same concept as PFO (themepark elements mixed with sandbox)

Tried mount and blade, I'm not a fan. Would love to see a mix of Dark Age of Camelot, GW2 and Planetside. Capturing territory in PS2 requires so much more teamwork than DAOC or GW2 ever did. On the larger scale of things, I really hope that Warfare in PFO incorporates things like destroying bridges to disrupt supply lines. The River Kingdoms is perfect for this kind of warfare, holding or destroying a bridge could totally turn the tide of a war where siege, cavalry and supply caravans must move with the army.

At the risk of showing my ignorance of MMOs (this one is the first I have seriously had an interest in playing) is there an easy way to distinguish NPCs from players before one interacts with the other? It seems that the easiest way for a PK to operate is to spoof being an NPC, to be attacked by a player, then taking them out. Also seems a good way to be a paid hit man.

You can generally tell them apart from the name. Imagine walking down an alleyway and you see two people up ahead, one is named Galanthor and the other is named Gankasaurus. ;)

@Ryan
What do you plan to have in place to stop Player Killers from just running around naked and killing, therefore having no risk to themselves? I love the concept in the blog, both with encumbrance and with the looting itself providing a risk/reward to us, but as soon as I read the blog I thought to myself "What would one of those annoying RPK types do to exploit this in their favour?".

It saddens me that the core PvE fan-base are still unable to give this concept a chance. I am a adventurer, explorer, crafter and I am most looking forward to playing in a world where there is a real risk of losing my gear If I don't use my wits. I wasn't going to back the second kickstarter but I succumbed eventually because I believe in GWs vision. One thing is certain though, If GW give in and change their vision to placate the current sqeaky wheel then I will withdraw my funding. I am backing the current PFO vision, I will not back a watered down carebear version of it.

Any form of narcotics or substances in Pathfinder could circumvent ESRB by naming them toxins or even avoid looking shady completely by having it simply seem like a herb or resource used in medicine that has strange side effects. It's all in how the material presents itself.

We are living in an alternate timeline where the makers of Blizzard stole the sports almanac and gave it to their younger selves creating an future for online gaming with WoW towering in the middle and an apocalyptic wasteland of WoW copies for as far as the eye can see.

McFly! McFly! Hullo!

You speak the thruth.. Blizzard CEO is Biff. We need Marty and Doc to reverse the damage.

Well on a lighter note and to try to steer the thread away from a war of egos I finally bit the bullet and put $175 pledge in to back development. Amazing what the human mind can do to convince itself to do sometimes.

@Ryan
I want to thank you and your team for the transparency into your design. It is because of this that I can feel comfortable in putting my money down. Maintain this integrity please, Goblin Works has earned my trust solely on the basis of your willingness to keep a constant dialogue with the community, not over promising. Honesty is a rare commodity in this day and age and it carries a long way.

Strive to be different from the sellouts and ensure your investors realise that we are not stupid, the graveyard of failed theme-parks is on the greedy shoulders of the faceless. The consumer has wizened up to their influences and hopefully with projects like this partially funded by kickstarters we can ensure that the players and developers hold the cards, not the faceless investors.

Personally I'm not bothered about a second or even a third kickstarter. I just can't justify forking out the money for it. I'm sure there are plenty of people that can, but I have accepted that I cannot spend another $100 after spending $250 already. I would have liked to have helped alpha test or even been in the crowd forger crew, but I don't expect it and I don't feel like I should be entitled to it. Whatever happens happens, I wish Goblinworks, Paizo and the Crowdforgers good luck in their endeavours and hope to see you 2 or 3 months after launch.

I would love to donate more money to the cause but I've already put in $250 for the tech demo and really cannot justify more for a game that I may not even like. I love to encourage indie development and also innovative projects such as this but I cannot justify more in the current economical climate. If it were an investment it would be a different story but I am the consumer in this relationship, not the investor, so there is no return of investment beside having a nice new game to play and quite frankly that is not worth more than I have already spent considering I still need to purchase the game.

I also am not a huge fan of characters appearing to carry all of their worldy possessions with them.
This wasn't so much an issue with what was in the demo (though the guy, again, was carrying more than I would like to), but with the artwork on which the designs are being based.

Apples and Oranges. I'm on the other side of that preference as I would prefer my adventurer to have a visual backpack with torches, rope, slung bow, shovel and bedroll visible on my character. It makes me feel more connected to my character as an adventurer. GW2 has an awesome looking backpack model on their toolkit engineers.

Movement and passive animations of the characters and goblins looked great. The 3D artists captured the Wayne Reynolds visual style very well.
I love the cramped, narrow passageways of the dungeons, but the I think they should be much darker. Your crew have done an outstanding job in the time that you have put this together.

I'm just currently eagerly awaiting whatever crumbs of information Ryan and his crew have to share with us. I don't want to list goods or bads of themepark MMOs because I don't really want this game to be anything like them.
I want a skill based game: Check
I want Pathfinder inspired art direction, game and world: Check
I want a true sandbox economy: Check
I want deep dark immersive dungeons, true labyrinths, a maze you can get lost in filled with traps, monsters and treasure to sell back at town (or get robbed trying to cart it all back)
I want a truly risk = reward fantasy environment where venturing into the wilderness might bestow wonderful treasures but those treasure and more could be lost in the process.

Spell components are a good idea imo, but where weapons are concerned this can be implemented by having your sword require maintenance on a regular basis. Swords need sharpening, they need to be oiled and looked after. Bow strings should be an important commodity as will feathers for fletching and varnish or oil to keep the bow in good repair. Armour and Shields need oil and polish, leather needs to be oiled and the list of opportunities can go on forever. All of these things will make spell components seem like a better alternative, but they will keep crafters, gatherers and adventurers in business.